The Scarlet Ribbon

In this nod to film noir, a distraught husband visits his close friend for advice about his unfaithful wife.

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In two minutes Franco Rawlings would knock down the door to my office and beg me for help. I wasn’t in any hurry to meet him in the hallway, so I just sat behind my desk and smoked. The windows were open and it was raining that rare soft rain which falls like translucent needles from a slate black sky. I listened to the cars rolling past on the street five floors down. The building was quiet; everyone had already gone home for the day. I didn’t have any music playing. I just listened and I waited.

Somewhere a metal door slammed open and feet pounded on the carpet in the hallway. I put out my cigarette. Franco shoved open my door. He was large enough to serve as a door himself: wide, thick, and with only a little more brain. He took off his hat and crept forward into the light that trickled in through my slanted blinds.

“Evening, Franco,” I said. “You look shook up.”

“I know it’s late, Doc. I need a favor. A big one.”

“Sure, Franco. Take a seat. I’ll fix you a drink.”

I slid open my bottom desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of brandy and two glasses. Franco licked his lips as I poured. He downed the first and second glasses hard, then sipped gratefully at his third.

“Need some liquid courage?” I joked. “It can’t be that bad a favor.”

Franco fiddled with his hat in his beefsteak fingers. “I saw him again.”

“Who?”

“The man who’s been fooling around with Nancy.” Franco looked up. His eyes were bleak and mean. “This time I saw her put a ribbon around his neck before he drove away.”

“Oh? You see what kind of ribbon?”

“A little transparent one. Scarlet, like her hair.”

I slid the bottom drawer out again and set the brandy bottle on top of Nancy’s ribbon. Then I slid the drawer shut and locked it. “You get a good look at him?”

“No,” Franco said. “Could be the same guy. Maybe a different guy. He shouldn’t have done it. It makes a man think about awful things, Doc. It makes a man do awful things to himself. If you wasn’t in here I was going to jump through your window. I’ve had it with her, always playing around when I’m out working.”

“She’s no good,” I said gently, to show him I was on his side.

“I can’t believe it.” Franco finished his drink. He turned his glass upside-down on the desk to show he was done. “You remember when I first met her? I told you before. We was ice-skating at the park on a Saturday, me and my brother. He told me some girls were watching us. There she was, Doc. The whole sun could have been in my eyes and she’s the only thing I would have seen. And there I went wobbling over on my skates, the biggest they had, to ask her out. I still don’t know why she said yes. We had such good times, Doc. Now look at where I’ve ended up.”

“You want me to help you nab this guy?”

Franco shook his head. “I need you to talk to Nancy. I told her I saw what she done. We had a fight. She’s not talking to me. Can you come talk to her? You always know what to say.”

I told him I’d be happy to. I slipped my pistol into its holster and we drove out from my office to the house. It was dark on the street and inside all the lights were off. Franco tried a light switch, but nothing came on. I told him the power must be knocked out. He searched for a flashlight while I went upstairs to Nancy’s room. I had a few moments to be alone with her and convince her to make up with Franco so we could keep being adulterous. She loved that word. It made her skin crawl in all the right ways.

I cracked open her door. “Nancy?” I whispered. “It’s me, Doc. Listen, Franco’s downstairs. I wanna talk to you.”

No breath stirred in the tiny room. There was a smell in the air that I couldn’t place. Thick and offensive. Then it came to me. Blood.

A flashlight came on behind me. I gasped at what I saw, what had been done to Nancy. Before I could go for my pistol an arm went under mine and locked my head in place in a half-Nelson. He pinned me to his steel chest, my skull in an enormous deathgrip. His other arm held the flashlight on Nancy’s body.

“Go ahead,” Franco said. “Go on, say what you wanted to say. Franco’s downstairs, right? Talk to her.”

“Jesus Christ,” I whimpered. “Oh Jesus, Franco.”

“All those times I came to you for help with Nancy.” His voice was tight and barely hanging on. “All those times you looked me in the eye and smiled. Well now it’s your turn to look. Go on. I want you to look at her and never forget. You know why? Because from the first night you slept with Nancy I knew who you was. I couldn’t believe it, but I had to live with it. I took it as long as I could take it. Well, now you’re gonna know just what I’ve had to live with. You ain’t gonna tell nobody about this, about who done it or why, but you’re gonna know, alright. You’re never gonna forget, and you’re not gonna have a friend in the world to turn to. You’re gonna know just how I felt while you was with her. And if you think about telling anyone about this, just picture me tapping on your window in the rain. I’ll be there, alright. I’ll be there.”

The flashlight went out and he dropped me on the floor. I fell hands first into Nancy’s blood.

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